{"id":975,"date":"2019-03-17T20:10:13","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T00:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/?p=975"},"modified":"2019-12-07T13:03:25","modified_gmt":"2019-12-07T18:03:25","slug":"mike-and-micky-the-monkees-are-still-magnificent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/mike-and-micky-the-monkees-are-still-magnificent\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike and Micky: The Monkees are still magnificent"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mickey<\/a>

Mickey Dolenz belts out a tune at “The Mike and Micky Show” March 6, 2019, at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

It was early 1967 The Monkees were frustrated. Sure, they had a successful television show \u2014 wildly more successful than anybody could have imagined at the time \u2014 and their first two albums, \u201cThe Monkees\u201d and \u201cMore of the Monkees,\u201d had reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 200 Albums chart.<\/p>\n

But The Monkees \u2014 Mike Nesmith, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and Davy Jones \u2014 weren\u2019t being taken seriously as musicians and songwriters. And that was beginning to wear on them heavily.<\/p>\n

So when it came time to make the third album, they went on strike, which was spearheaded by Nesmith.<\/p>\n

\u201cMike had become very frustrated, and I don\u2019t blame him because he had bought into this whole thing (The Monkees),\u201d said Dolenz in a July 11, 2017, interview with The Vinyl Dialogues. \u201cHe was a singer-songwriter and he came into The Monkees with that in mind. I know he was promised that we\u2019d be doing some of his songs, and that he\u2019d be writing and singing. That didn\u2019t turn out to be the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dolenz doesn\u2019t believe, more than 50 years later, that there was any nefarious plot by record executives to stifle the artistic creatively and freedom of The Monkees. It\u2019s just that the television show steamrolled so fast and hard and became so instantly successful that the corporations behind it \u2014 RCA Victor, NCB Television and Screen Gems \u2014 got overwhelmed by the Monkees mania.<\/p>\n

\u201cMike will tell you, even now, that we weren\u2019t capable of doing our own music at first,\u201d said Dolenz. \u201cBut the story he\u2019s told me is that he went to the producers early on and he said he had written this song that he wanted to do as a Monkees song, and he played it for them. And they said, \u2018No, that\u2019s not a Monkees song.\u2019 And Mike said, \u2018Wait a minute, I am one of the Monkees.\u2019 And they said, \u2018Yeah, yeah, fine. But it\u2019s not a Monkees song.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mike<\/a>

Mike Nesmith of The Monkees was in fine voice at “The Mike and Micky Show” at the Keswick Theatre.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

Frustrated but determined, Nesmith decided to give the song to a young female singer who was kicking around the Los Angeles area in the summer of 1967. Her name was Linda Ronstadt and the song was \u201cDifferent Drum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rondstadt and her band The Stone Poneys released the song in September 1967 and it went to No. 12 on the Cash Box Top 100 Singles chart, No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart and No. 16 in Record World magazine.<\/p>\n

But putting their collective feet down, led by Nesmith, for The Monkees third album, \u201cHeadquarters\u201d proved to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cMike got us all on board and said, \u2018We can do this if we put our minds to it.\u2019 Mike was the one who encouraged me do some songwriting. Basically, we said we just want something to say about what\u2019s going on with this album,\u201d said Dolenz.<\/p>\n

Dolenz believes that fans then didn\u2019t care that the Monkees weren\u2019t playing their own instruments or writing their own songs, although the band members did. The famous Los Angles session musicians The Wrecking Crew had played on The Monkees first two albums, as well as on albums by the Beach Boys, Sonny and Cher, The Mamas and the Papas, the 5th Dimension and Frank Sinatra, so it wasn\u2019t that unusual in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked my wife, who was an original fan in the 1960s at age 8, \u2018Honey, did you care at all about whether we played all the instruments and that whole thing?\u2019 And she said, \u2018No, you were just cute,\u2019\u201d said Dolenz. \u201cThe Beatles didn\u2019t play on every single record. They had people come in all the time. Unfortunately, we\u2019re the ones that kind of got beat up for it, and ironically, we were the ones who didn\u2019t have a choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the \u201cHeadquarters\u201d album would provide some vindication for The Monkees. It was the first album that included substantial songwriting and instrumental performances by members of the group.<\/p>\n

\"Mickey<\/a>

Mickey Dolenz on the guitar during “The Mike and Micky Show.”
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n

All it did was reach No. 1 on the Billboard 200 Album chart and was certified double-platinum in the United States with sales of more than two million copies within the first two months. Released on May 22, 1967, it stayed at No.1 for just one week \u2014 and might have stayed there longer \u2014 but the Beatles released \u201cSgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band\u201d on May 26, 1967, and that album replaced The Monkees at No.1 and stayed there for 11 weeks, with \u201cHeadquarters\u201d right behind in the No. 2 spot for the same number of weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re going to get blown out of the No. 1 position, I guess Sgt. Pepper is a good one to do that,\u201d said Dolenz.
\nMore than 50 years later, Nesmith and Dolenz, the surviving members of The Monkees \u2014 Jones died in 2012 and Tork died in February 2019 \u2014 are still proving that they\u2019re the real deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Mike and Micky Show\u201d at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA, on March 6 left no doubt that the remaining Monkees are as good as they ever were.<\/p>\n

Their set included The Monkees hits, songs written by both Nesmith and Dolenz, and several from the \u201cHeadquarters\u201d album, including \u201cYou Just May Be the One,\u201d \u201cYou Told Me\u201d and \u201cSunny Girlfriend\u201d written by Nesmith; \u201cFor Pete\u2019s Sake,\u201d co-written by Tork; \u201cRandy Scouse Git,\u201d written by Dolenz; and \u201cI\u2019ll Spend My Life With You,\u201d written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart.<\/p>\n

The show was special not only because Nesmith and Dolenz are great musicians and performers, but because it was just a few weeks after Tork\u2019s death, and it was evident both Dolenz and Nesmith were affected by the loss of Tork. In addition, the show was a rescheduled performance from a June 2018 Keswick Theatre show where Nesmith had collapsed just after soundcheck and needed bypass surgery, from which he appears to be fully recovered.<\/p>\n

But through it all, The Monkees put on a great show. It\u2019s obvious the two are comfortable with each other onstage.
\nEverybody left the theater that evening with a smile on their faces. And rightfully so. The Monkees still got it.<\/p>\n

\"Mike<\/a>

Mike Nesmith and Micky Dolenz of The Monkees have surrounded themselves with a fabulous group of musicians for “The Mike and Micky” shows.
(Photo by Mike Morsch)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was early 1967 The Monkees were frustrated. Sure, they had a successful television show \u2014 wildly more successful than anybody could have imagined at the time \u2014 and their first two albums, \u201cThe Monkees\u201d and \u201cMore of the Monkees,\u201d had reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 200 Albums chart. But The Monkees […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":1180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[173,176,274],"class_list":["post-975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tvdbook","tag-micky-dolenz","tag-mike-nesmith","tag-the-monkees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1181,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/975\/revisions\/1181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinyldialogues.com\/VinylDialoguesBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}